Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Here's an interesting story I found on the web. It happened in Nova Scotia on January 6th, when election was held for the South Shore Regional School Board "mandatory" black member. While ethnic quotas, set-asides and other programs under which jobs (especially in the public service) are awarded based on candidates' origin, rather than their skills have become common, the South Shore Regional School Board went even further. Segregating candidates apparently wasn't enough for them, so they decided to segregate the voters as well.

This was by no means an easy job. In their greatest dereliction, neither Elections Canada nor Elections Nova Scotia have yet prepared a separate electoral roll for visible minorities. So the school board had to develop their own guidelines:

To cast a ballot, people must have children who consider themselves African-Nova Scotian or they need to be the children of African-Nova Scotians themselves.

Yet when it actually came to voting, it was up to the poll clerks to decide who is black enough to cast a ballot for a "mandatory black member" and who isn't. While the board pledged to make the polls "available and accessible to the entire range of voters" and printed over 44,000 ballots, only 31 residents were allowed to vote. Few more voters (as the failed candidate Gordon Warrington claims - mostly his supporters) showed up but were turned away from the polls because their skin was too light.

Shall I mention that this whole charade cost taxpayers $30,000? Shall I add that a previous attempt to elect a "mandatory black member" for that same school board ended up with half of the ballots being declared invalid by the judge?...

Next time the South Shore Regional School Board wants to bring a member of a visible minority group on board - they better just appoint him. I think it's better than having an election in which all but 30 residents (out of 44,000) are too white to vote.